...and I'm the only one!
I’m sending you somewhere else because I came across a post yesterday by one of my favorite writers, and I think you should read it.
http://isaacdeitz.com/2011/03/question-should-christians-cuss/
I really think you should click on over and read it.
Really. Not just about this topic, but about the gospel in general. So good.
I hate saying I’m a Christian to people, because honestly, I don’t want to be lumped in with people who just go to church on Sunday morning and pray the rosary and what not, but don’t actually live it out. I hate associating myself with a denomination because I again don’t want to be lumped into a category of predetermined concepts of what I should believe. I hate saying I don’t go to church on Sunday morning, because there is immediate judgment, and I never get the chance to explain. So I think I’m going to talk about that here.
I don’t go to church on Sunday mornings (while I’m at school). There are a couple reasons for this. 1. I am currently struggling with the church and all that entails. I’m struggling with the inaccuracy of some things I’ve been taught (which I’ll come back to) and I’m struggling with the lack of action and responsibility the church has taken on things that are really important and I think we as believers are called to do. Also, I have a problem with doing things only if you feel called, so that was a bad word choice. I think technically, we are called to do everything, while we may only be spiritually gifted in a couple areas. For instance, I am called to evangelism, even though it is not my spiritual gift, nor am I comfortable doing it. Does that mean I leave the job to everyone else? Absolutely not.
2. I’m not sure what kind of church around here I would go to if I chose to go to one. I went to one at the beginning of last semester, the only one around that I really thought I would fit into really well and connect well with the background of church styles that I have. I went to this church for about ten minutes. I walked in, and walked out. There was an evil sense in the room. It was one of those churches with lights, and songs, and everything seems very contemporary, but something was very, very wrong. God was not in that room, but someone else was. It was probably the scariest feeling I’ve ever had in a church. Not right.
3. I don’t have a car. (lame. I know. If I had a way to get to church on a regular basis– which doesn’t happen a lot here– I may have thought about it more)
All that being said, I need to clarify a few things. I still have fellowship with other believers. I still have corporate worship. A lot of people here say that chapel does not equal church. Why not? I go to chapel with an open heart and I learn something every single time. I worship with all of my heart. I have fellowship there too. I treat it like church, and most of the time, I don’t feel the obligation and therefore I want to go. If we looked at the definition of a church, then chapel would be church. Teaching. Fellowship. Accountability. Worship. The church is a body of people, not a building.
I’m going to go back to what I said earlier about the things I’m struggling with. I’m really working through things pertaining to what I have been taught in the church. All my life, I’ve heard these nice little Bible stories, and things like “the Bible has nothing wrong with it except punctuation.” “Every word is inspired by God.” I’m really struggling with those things, because from deeper studies, I’m not so sure if they are true. I think that somewhere along the lines, we may have mixed up tradition and facts. Did Moses really write the Pentateuch? Did John the Baptist really baptize Jesus, because if so, then why did Luke try and make it seem like he didn’t? The more I study the scripture without bias and tradition, the more I think that I’ve been taught tradition and not truth.
That being said, none of this has changed the core of what I believe. I think that has come from a new understanding about faith. I used to think faith was having everything figured out and believing that it was true. Lately, I’ve learned that faith is having unanswered questions, but still taking that step onto the ground you don’t see. You believe it is there without understanding how or where it is. True faith isn’t believing what you know; it’s believing without a doubt what you don’t know. I think our God isn’t our God if he fits inside our heads. If I could understand everything about God and his word, I would stop believing, because he wouldn’t be big enough to be my God. And I’m not just talking about the cliche questions, like trying to understand the nature of God and the trinity. The little things matter too. Like believing that regardless of whether or not we know who authored the books of the Bible and what their intentions were, we take it just as it was written, with its bias and intentions, and read it because it’s still God’s word.
I don’t think having questions is wrong. Actually, I think it’s really healthy. Anyone who tells me differently seems to think they have all the answers, but I don’t think that’s possible.
My life has gotten really hectic, but only because I’m actually working really hard this semester, so I’m spending basically all of my free time studying. My parents would be so proud.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been to D.C. and back for the March for Life, and I’ve gotten my butt kicked with some new ideas.
I went to D.C. to work for Stand True again, so it was a lot of sitting behind a booth talking to people about who we are, what we do, and selling a lot of t-shirts. I left Friday afternoon and got there 3 hours later. We spent a good chunk of our time every night at the Dubliner, a few blocks from our hotel. The Dubliner is the closest thing to a real Irish pub I’ve ever been in, and it made me really miss being back in Ireland. Every night, this is the hot spot for the best pro-life leaders in America, and even the globe. This is the spot for networking, and I did quite a bit. Although hanging out with really great people was a perk, that’s not why I went. This was not my first march, but I do hope it was my last.
The march is always really hard on me, and my emotions run high. It’s not inspirational for me most of the time, as it is for most people to see 300000 others who share your passion for life. It’s more depressing than that for me, because it reminds me that we still need that many supporters, and more, to end abortion. And that’s sad. I don’t want this to be a hard battle, but it is, with not as many soldiers as I’d like to see.
Saturday, as we were sitting in the basement of the Hyatt (where they hold a conference and displays during the March weekend) at our booth, when we got into it with a couple about graphic images. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. When is this appropriate? When does the success matter more than respecting the life of the person you are showing mutilated and dismembered? If we truly believe that the life of that human person killed by abortion is as valuable as any other human life, is it manipulation to use graphic images of their dead body to try and convince people to become pro-life? Should we always display warning signs before showing them? I’m mostly struggling with the respect we seem to disregard for that person whom we are showing to the whole world. I haven’t decided if I really think it should be used ever, despite the success and shock value.
The other thing I am struggling with right now, and I’m just going to be brutal here, is the attitude of my school, in particular, the people calling themselves a part of our Students for Life group on campus. If any of you read this, come talk to me, because I’m not talking about everyone here, but most. I feel like the Bible thumping idiots people in our group hold the value of punishing people for sins deemed by humans as being worse than others more important than human life and grace.
I just needed to get that out there. Comments or thoughts?
I started classes again today. I only have one on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Easy day. But not easy on my brain. I thought a lot today about hard things.
The other day I was watching ‘Cougar Town’, which is a show about a group of middle age people who are all bffs. Or something like that. Jules, the main character, is still friends with Bobby, her ex husband (stick with me). Bobby is a simple man who doesn’t know a lot of things. One day, someone decides to educate him and sends him world newspapers and literature about the issues of the world today. Because Bobby has never been exposed to these things, they consume his mind and he can’t focus or do things he normally does, like sinking the ball in the hole when he’s golfing. There is one scene on the golf course where it shows everything running through his head while he’s trying to putt.
He’s thinking so much about the things going on in the world and it troubles him so much he can’t focus. That’s how I feel 5/7 of the time. I wish I could turn my brain off and stop thinking about abortion, genocide, poverty, human trafficking, terrorism, the roles of the church in all of it, racism, starvation, disease. You name it. Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking of what I can do about it. It’s really depressing. I just don’t know how I can be a part of changing things that are in desperate need of help. So for now, I’m going to focus on just one and add others in later.
Next Friday, I’ll be heading to D.C. to work with Stand True at the March for Life. This year, I will not only be a participant, but also working to get other people more involved. I can’t wait. Could you help out with this?
We need prayer that the media would cover this with truth and accuracy.
We need prayer for our team’s effectiveness and good attitudes.
We need prayer for all the people in a “choice” situation.
We need prayer for God to change people’s hearts.
We need prayer for peace.
At the march, at the clinics, in the womb.
As we start a new year, I feel the need to say, I have no new years resolutions. I don’t think that the start to a new year is a good reason to work on substantial things. The things in my life I have seen that need to be changed have been in the process of changing for quite some time now. If something doesn’t work properly, you don’t wait a while to fix it. You fix it so it can function again.
I think new years resolutions are a crutch for not putting on our big girl panties and dealing with things that need to be dealt with, when they need to be dealt with.
So, this new year, I’ll continue to work on the things I have already been working on, I will not make unrealistic promises to myself, and I will pray that God will show me some new things to work on this year, too.
Happy New Year! God is going to do some awesome things this year. He did some awesome things last year too.
Yesterday was a hard day. It was hard because last night, a special aired on MTV called “No Easy Decision”, a spin off of “16 & Pregnant” that followed a young woman through her decision to have an abortion. (They also interviewed two other women who had chosen abortion) While it was especially hard to watch a young women decide that in order to give her toddler a chance at a better life, her second child would have to die, it was even harder to watch the suffering she went through labeled as “normal”.
I don’t disagree that the suffering she went through while making this decision was normal. I think any woman who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy and makes this choice goes through painful experiences. The consultations, the visits, the abortion itself, and the after effects. I would say that’s painful. What was hard was watching all of that being labeled as normal, and therefore okay. In an interview with a doctor on the show, he dismissed this girl’s feelings because most women who have had an abortion feel the same things. Where is the counseling this girl needed? Where is the sympathy? My point is, while this may be normal, what is our world coming to when something so awful is normal, and we’re okay with it. In fact, it’s encouraged. That’s sick. We are encouraging the suffering of others, and we are endorsing murder of innocent children.
While this show was a shock to most pro-life people watching, I would venture to say it could have been a good thing. There were some bad things that I wish had been different: the reference to the human being as a “pregnancy tissue” and “product of conception”, the lack of care for the people, and the misrepresentation of life facts. But here is what was good: it wasn’t easy. It didn’t look easy. The girls who talked about their abortions were torn up about it. They showed America that this is not perfectly fine with nothing to worry about. They showed America that having an abortion is not easy, no matter how hard you try to make it seem easy. They showed that they knew their babies were living human beings, with the things that they said and the tears they shed. That is a win, people.
A big fat win. Abortion isn’t easy. It isn’t safe, it isn’t a breeze, and it is no easy decision.
— I would also like to reiterate that while I admit that we have the choice to abortion in this country, that does not make it right. Everyone has choices, but there are good choices, bad choices, and choices that land you in prison, like murder. That person had the “choice” to murder another person, but that doesn’t make it right.
There is a show called “What Would You Do?”. The basic premise is setting up a controversial situation, planting hidden cameras, and trying to get passer bys involved in standing up for the victims of social injustices. Some examples are bullying by peers in a public park, a boyfriend physically abusing a girlfriend, racial profiling of a black woman shopping, and neglect of a mother who has left their infant alone in a locked car in hot weather. The goal is for the people who witness these things to step in and say something, stand up for the victim, and get involved in other people’s business when it is detrimental to another human being.
I think if I had to pick one out that made me the most mad is the one where they had a gay or lesbian couple eating in a nice restaurant with a waiter who attacks them and their children, refuses them service, and asks them to leave. This happens more often than we think, and the misconception is that if we don’t agree with them on the subject of gay marriage or being gay in general, we shouldn’t stand up for them. The point in standing up for them is not standing up for them being gay, it’s standing up for them as human beings, who should still be treated with respect, regardless of sexual orientation or skin color or gender or age. Each human being deserves respect and the right to a peaceful dinner, or shopping day, or day at the park studying.
Human beings are being killed every single day by the horror of abortion, and we have to a great extent said that is none of my business. It is our business when innocent children each day are killed by the thousands because they are inconvenient to us. 93% of all abortions are elective. Just because a woman legally has the choice to kill her child in this country does not mean she is making the right choice. I have a choice to attack a lesbian couple, I have a choice to bully someone, I have a choice to discriminate against black people in my store, and I have a choice to hit my spouse, but just because I have that choice does not mean it is right.
Our choices affect everyone around us. It becomes our business when it begins to affect us, and what person on earth has not been affected by abortion? I guarantee you know someone (at least one) who has had an abortion. I guarantee that if you are born after January 22, 1973 that you are a survivor of the largest holocaust in history, and 1/3 of your generation has been killed by abortion. Your sisters, your brothers, your cousins, your friends. Gone. And we’re still saying it’s none of our business?
Stop being afraid of stepping on people’s toes and do the right thing. Make the right choice. Because you do have one. But this is about integrity and life, not choice.
I have jumbled thoughts lately. I don’t think any of them are by themselves enough for a great post, but maybe together they will be sufficient.
I finished what was my first semester away from home, and essentially what was my freshman year of college. I am now officially a sophomore, in credit hours, which leads me to question where I will be in a year. I haven’t declared a major and this semester will be my last core credit semester. I have to declare a major by spring, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought I had it all figured out, but then I went to a different school. Now, I want to got to law school, but I don’t want to limit myself to political science only, and I would like to study theology. Who knows.
Yesterday I spent my morning talking to high schoolers about abortion. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Younger people have such a large role in this fight. They’ll be voting in just a few short years. I’m only nineteen, and I know I already am called to devote my life to this. As young people, we also have grown up in an age of better technology than our parents, meaning we have access to knowing what day the heart starts beating (18) and brain begins functioning (40), and we know because of ultrasound technology and things that those children are not “products of conception”, “potential human lives”, or a “clump of cells”. We know the truth. One of my favorite things to do is speak to teenagers. Yesterday was an impactful day. I went over the facts of abortion, the procedures, and arguments often used. I came home to a couple tweets saying something along the lines of: I was on the fence before you spoke, I am now completely pro-life, or thanks for telling us the truth because that wasn’t what I was told. I also got an e-mail from a girl who wasn’t even there saying she and a friend would like to talk to me, because her friend, who was there, suggested it. That is what I do this for, to be there for people, to tell them the truth, and to make a difference. A lot of younger people (including myself at one point) think they can’t make a difference. 6 kids in Ireland kept abortion from being legalized. Inspiration at its finest. I can make a difference, and I will prove them wrong.
Christmas is coming. I’m really excited. I can’t wait for Christmas Eve church services, and I’m already listening to Christmas music when I can. I love this season. This December, it seems pretty easy to focus on what we’re really celebrating. I don’t know what it is, but this year I just seem to think about that a lot. Maybe because of everything He has done for me. I’ve thought a lot about Christmas and what it means. Since abortion is heavy on my heart every single day, I thought about how the two are connected. Planned Parenthood’s campaign to end any and all unwanted pregnancies coincides with this season in which we celebrate the ultimate unplanned pregnancy, with an unmarried teenage mother, covered in disgrace, a humiliated father, but one who chose adoption instead of leaving. Ironic?
That’s all I’m leaving here with today.
After church, my family always eats lunch together. Usually we go out, because we don’t do that as a family normally. For the past couple years, at some point after going to church (and youth group… but that’s another post), someone asks what you thought of church. Automatically, we tell them whether or not we liked the sermon, right?
“I didn’t really like it because I felt like I’ve already heard it before.” or “It just was for a different audience… I didn’t get anything out of it.”
This attitude of criticizing sermons is an issue that I’ve really been struggling with as I think about the change that church needs. If a pastor is teaching on something he felt called to teach on, then it was a purposeful sharing of God’s message. Is it really our place? I think this also applies to saying whether or not we liked the worship set.
We meet as a church for several different reasons. One, to be in community with fellow believers. Two, to worship our Lord in a corporate setting. Three, to hear God’s word and reflect on things to apply to our life. I would even add another one– to plan out how to reach people, and collectively go out and do it! If we meet as a church for these reasons, then going to church and listening to a sermon or worshipping through song isn’t really about us, is it?
During a sermon, God is speaking. It is not about whether or not we get what we need, but rather if we have opened our hearts to hear what He is saying. During worship, we are telling our creator how incredible he is! It shouldn’t matter what songs are used as long as we are worshipping him from the bottom of our heart.
There are some exceptions to this idea. I would say being critical is necessary if you feel week after week, that there are doctrinal issues or a lack of God’s presence in the message or worship. There have been churches I have walked into and felt an evil presence… which is sincerely just a lack of Christ.
But all in all, church is not about us seeing what we can “get out of it”. It’s about opening our hearts and being fed by the Holy Spirit. I’ve really had to watch myself after church to focus on what God taught me, instead of what he didn’t. It’s something that is really tough to change when I think most Christians have grown up this way. I think especially in my family, I was almost taught to be super critical, because that’s how everyone around me was. In the last few years, my mom and dad and I have really been working on that because it caused so much division between us. I think outside the box when it comes to this stuff and now that we have fixed our attitude, we all realize that no one is really wrong, except for the people being really critical just because they think their way is the only way. When it comes to worshipping God, no one’s way is the only way.
Check your heart the next time you’re in church. Get out of critical mode and instead, get your heart ready to worship your God. He deserves more than our petty judgments.
This post isn’t really about abortion, but it might seem like that for a second. Stay with me.
I remember talking to my mom, when I was about ten years old, telling her a load of bull about something I learned from a friend. I bet she saw right through that, because I had no idea what I was talking about, and it must’ve been obvious. We all have an inherent crap radar, right? We know when someone is being fake, or making something up about their life, but can we tell the difference between facts and stories?
While waiting in line at a coffee shop yesterday with a friend, we ran into some guys she knows. They were having a conversation about birth control. One of the guys was talking about how some people don’t believe in birth control and that if he married someone like that, he would start putting the pill in her food, or crushing it into a drink. Let’s not get into the deception aspect of all this. I blew that comment off, but it was quickly followed by this: “Actually, instead I should just give her the morning after pill every three days.”
My friend Bekah started in telling him that the morning after pill causes abortions. I stayed out of it at this point because she was taking care of it and I didn’t really know him that well. The only thing I added was why it’s an abortion (and that is because conception can already have taken place and by preventing implantation, you kill the embryo, which is a human being with all it’s chromosomes). Until this came up: “I don’t believe a baby is alive until it can feel pain, so it’s not an abortion.” Oh man, he about got punched in the face. Bekah just started telling him he was wrong, and he just needed to walk away. I would love to have a legit conversation with him and ask him if he’d ever even taken a biology class.
That is the saddest excuse I may have ever heard, aside from the time of birth, for when life begins. I personally am convinced there is no other time for life to begin than conception, which I won’t go into detail explaining, but most biologists and books agree, unless they are pro-choice, in which case I see a lot of twisting of scientific facts. Anyway, there is only one really logical choice and that is conception. But if you do not believe it’s conception, then logically, there is only one other option. I don’t want to go into this, but basically I think it would be the time both the heart are beating and brain waves are emitted. Again, not my opinion, but the only other option that I could see being anywhere near logical.
I’m rambling.
The point of this story is not abortion, but rather the ignorance behind his comments. It amazes me how people can have such a strong opinion on something they know nothing about. I tend to not have an opinion on something until I have both sides of the argument and I know a decent amount of information. Human life is something I know a great deal about. I have studied both sides of the argument, and how we came into existence. I don’t claim to be pro-life because my parents are pro-life, because someone I looked up to told me what to believe, or even because I follow Christ. I am pro-life because I don’t think there could be another option after looking at life developments facts and using my brain.
The things I don’t know anything about are basically the only thing I will not argue about. I like to have debates, and I like winning. But I only enter into debates I know I can win, because I know a lot about it. It amazed me that he could be so sure of something he knew really nothing about. Had he ever read a biology book? I would bet that he didn’t get an A in health class.
I actually started thinking about this because of the debate between creationism and evolution that popped up in my Facebook newsfeed. There were just ignorant comments flying, from both sides. People who thought they knew what they were talking about, but in reality they had nothing to back it up. I was actually kind of upset that all the creationists could say was that the Bible says so, so it must be true. That’s great guys, because there isn’t any factual evidence to back it up or anything. Evolutionists were claiming there was much more scientific evidence for evolution and creationism has none. You know what’s wrong with the theory of evolution? It’s being treated as if they have evidence, making it truth, but really, all it is is a theory, just like creationism. I would say that the problem with the missing link, is that it’s MISSING. Personally, I think macroevolution is crazy, but microevolution is necessary.
Why are people arguing that something with no evidence behind it is factual? It’s the only thing that people know that doesn’t involve a God they have to submit to. Why is it that people are taking others’ word for it when they tell them we came from monkeys, but when someone tells them the paint is wet, they have to double check? People don’t have free thought anymore, instead they choose to form opinions and beliefs based on what others tell them, rather than drawing their own conclusions and investigating truth for themselves. Ignorance may be bliss, however it won’t be a valid excuse come Judgement day.
I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, but this I know for sure. If you ask God for wisdom, it will be given to you, generously, without finding fault. (James 1:5) That has proven true in my life, and I believe I have been given wisdom, especially in reference to specific areas.
This all baffles me. Know before you speak. I’m guilty of this, but I am working on it every second of my life.
“The more one learns, the more one sees one’s ignorance.” — Chinese proverb
